good lad, nice to know it was successful
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I’ve heated my house and hot water with logs for the past 8 years since moving down to Devon. Two woodburning stoves, one with a back boiler (Dunsley Yorkshire) and one in the fireplace between two rooms (Woodwarm double sided). I discovered the top down fire several years ago and, in the main stove, always use that method. Once built, I can light it and leave it for at least a couple of hours without having to touch it other than to turn it down a bit when it gets fully going.
The boiler stove is downdraft and doesn’t work the same way. With that one it’s a Jenga stack of kindling with an eco firefighter at the bottom, light it, let it get going, knock it into a burning pile then stack the logs on and walk away.
Woodburning is very eco friendly if done with a well designed stove and with renewable supply. We have a small old coppice woodland on the farm and part of my winter work is thinning and clearing it to bring it back into better condition as it’s been ignored for 40-50 years. This gives an endless supply of hardwood logs and almost zero heating bills.
That said, I’ve just spent a ridiculous amount of money on a ground source heating system to give the place central heating for the first time and it’s heavenly. I’ll still be lighting fires though, nothing like an evening in front of the caveman tv to relax you.
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We’ve had a Stovax Stockton 4 for about five years now in our dining room. It’s quite a small (4kw) multi-fuel stove, and we tend to burn wood. It’s really useful during the early autumn before we turn on the central heating and again in late spring when we turn the heating off around the house, but we still need a warmer room. During the winter, it’s an additional top-up to our central heating, and we often spend time in the dining room.
I’ve found that the fuel is crucial. Dry, well seasoned hard wood - it needs to be dried for at least a couple of years - burns the best, is the most efficient and less hazardous to the environment. Unfortunately, we haven’t got storage for a lot of wood to let it season. So I’ve found a good local supply of kiln-dried wood - mainly silver birch - which works well, and gives a good heat.
For kindling, we use old kitchen towel cardboard tubes, with scrunched up newspaper at one end, a filling of dryer lint (brilliant), shredded scrap paper, sawdust, bits of the logs, etc, and then another bit of newspaper. I put that on top of old ash in the grate, plus cardboard strips, small bits of wood, etc, built up around it.
Then, with all vents open, plus the stove door a tiny bit, it normally lights pretty quickly. In very cold weather, we need to pre-heat the flue a bit. Once the stove is lit, you have to close the door to ensure you don’t overfire.
Then you can build up the fire with bigger pieces of wood before going on to the logs. Shut down the door vent once it’s going. I tend to keep the bottom vent half to fully open, and the Air Wash open.
I’m particularly pleased with our kindling. We’ve made about 40 of these filled kitchen-towel rolls. Give them a try!
Depends on your point of view My nieghbour has recently installed one and I now have to keep all windows closed to keep the house from smelling like a bonfire.
Modern log burners have an air system that works from the top, and circulates. The old type had air from underneath.
On the modern one it will light either way. Mine is not air underneath and will light logs with only a couple of firelighters, no kindling required. Just open the air fully, then gradually close it down.
My wife’s method is chuck in half a packet of fire lighters and a log. When she sets a fire going, what comes out of the flue looks like the Queen Mary getting ready to set sail.
Thankfully our stove is steel cased rather than cast iron so there’s little chance of it cracking.
I have a 5kw Fireline multi fuel stove and absolutely love it. It heats our conservatory in winter but can easily heat the ground floor of our 4 bedroomed house. We have a steel flue. I have tried both fire lighters and newspapers and kindling. My main advice in very cold weather would be, before laying the paper and kindling, to light 3 or 4 sheets of lightly crumpled paper first and let this gently heat the flue. This allows the flue to ‘draw’ when the real fire is laid. If you don’t do this you can get a down draft that will fill your room with smoke whilst the flue warms up sufficiently to pull the smoke upwards.
Thanks ALB123 for entering the debate and that you are enjoying your log burner.
The idea of the top down method is I think, to do what your paper does and charge the flue with heat.
Take care.
Well! finally had the log burner installed this week, would have been sooner, but my first guy let me down . Now it’s installed, I can see where the money went, with the insulated pipework and a decent stove.
It’s freestanding, pipework through a wall and up and over to the roof. Two fitter’s did a neat and tidy job over a day and a half.
As for the “Top down method”, they encouraged it and I’m successfully using it, works well! Someone mentioned a bit of crumbled newspaper to warm the flu, the fitter mentioned doing that, but so far so good. Is it doing the job I wanted it to do? Yes it’s nice and warm, very pleased. 